Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Imagine a person was burning 2000 calories a day on average when they were going to work. That included, walking to the car and going from the parking lot to your job. That person was possibly going up and down stairs and walking to meetings. The total calories also included walking to the mall or dancing at the lounge and happy hour. We call this energy expenditure Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT for short.
Let’s fast forward to March 2020. Many people started working from home. No more walking to the car, through the parking lot or up the stairs. Work is now just an arm’s reach away. Some of us can just roll over at 8:50am and be working by 9am without setting a foot on the ground. Sounds cool. We can all use a break from the daily grind. We may find that we are actually getting more done from home.
What happened to NEAT for many of us? It went away. So now we have to cut our calorie use down drastically. But here is the problem. We are still eating the same size breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, we are home with full access to all of our snacks. Every day we can be facing a calorie surplus of 500 calories. Do you know what that means for the week? We can be gaining 1 pound per week or 4 pounds per month. March, April, May, June, July living quasi-quarantined adds up to gaining a possible 20 pounds or more! But don’t fear. We can fix it. Try these 6 tips.
1. Set your clock and walk around every for a couple minutes every hour when you are awake.
2. Go far a 30-minute jog or walk daily.
3. When you go to the grocery store park far to make yourself walk more.
4. Add 3-5 High Intensity 30 minutes workouts per week.
5. Buy healthier food to avoid grabbing sugary snacks while at home.
6. Cut back on your serving size to make your consumption matches the calories you burn
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